top stories on our t.v. thousands of greeks protest against a fresh. plan to appease the country's. place in the single currency. and the user spreading crisis doesn't france where growing unemployment poor economic growth the president's approval rating plummet just months after winning office. plus the east asia pacific nations look for ways to energize economic recovery in russia as the u.s. and european economies flounder. democrats and republicans brace themselves for the

battle ahead of the u.s. presidential election we hear from critics who question whether there's any genuine choice. with the top stories of the week today this is the weekly on artsy with me wrong. greece has seen its first large scale protest against a new round of wage and pension cuts thousands marching through the streets of the country's second biggest city of thessaloniki minor scuffles with riot police are ruptured at the end of what was otherwise a peaceful demonstration several young people said rubbish bins on fire and burned and flag the protest took place against the backdrop of. inspectors visiting greece to assess whether the nation qualifies for its next multi billion euro tranche of

aid to secure that rescue loan and to stay in the euro zone is planning on spending cuts worth almost about twelve billion euros. a report. greek prime minister antonis samaras has said that he will do everything within his power to make sure the greece remains within the euro zone however he did acknowledge that the cuts that is government were making were both unfair and painful for the greek people but as unfair and painful as they are he says that the necessary as without being in the eurozone greece would die as a nation now he also says the important is in terms of the country men taining any credibility that it has left on the global financial stage and my credibility is set to be tested quite soon is all it is from the so-called troika arrives in greece to see whether they've fulfilled their part of the bargain when it comes to making the cuts that they were asked to do on whether they received the next round

of bailout money a massive thirty one billion euros worth of assistance whether those cuts are necessary they're certainly not popular here in thessaloniki we've seen thousands of people out on the streets of greece's second city demonstrating against the way that the current governments are handling the financial crisis when anger and the way the government is dealing with the crisis what they're doing is wrong it's not just in terms of protest the greek people are airing their their grievances with the current government if you look at the latest political polls we're seeing that some are ases government lies in second place behind a a opposition party that anti bailout money was perhaps more worrying though is if you see that in third place is the ultra rightist party golden dawn party that has a far right agenda some of called neo nazi and fire they certainly have

a seemingly growing popularity here in greece which is concerning many people many people i've seen out in the streets here protesting what they call the fascist organization and. have to say though this demonstration thessaloniki far more peaceful than some we've seen in the past in greece that people are upset they're airing their views but they're certainly not of the violence a that we've seen in cities like athens as people demonstrate against the handling of the financial crisis. now approach of the crippling austerity has a flat among other eurozone countries as well portugal's main trade union dubbed the new government cuts a declaration of war with spending on welfare being slashed while in spain hundreds walked out against what they called a german meddling in their country's economy the european central bank finally brought out the big guns and announced it will be buying indebted countries bollinger's the move has already seen spain and italy its borrowing costs for what

french economists here believes the e.c.b. plan will not actually help in the long term. the european central bank will buy. the same time we resell private corporate bonds it's called civilization not to increase global liquidity on that market as a result effect of this strategy all to be short lived i don't expect this kind of anti christ plan to work more then three to four months he didn't address the main crisis of the eurozone crisis is not a crisis of the debt it's a competitive into krises and by the way it's as a decrease of growth the collapse of growth we have in a lot of eurozone kountry and formed the e.c.b. is not addressing the real crisis and the problem is the fact that the eurozone is

in recession so far and we see the is now stating that the rescission cool go on for the next two yeah this is not good news you know and the e.c.b. is not that dressing this problem. well disillusionment with the government is also spreading to france a slump in economic growth huge job cuts and wall rhetoric regarding syria have all led to a record number of french citizens disapproving of their president so shortly after he took office. france may have lost its title as the country with the highest per capita consumption of antidepressants but the french certainly have at last a peasant as of now with even more reasons to be unhappy because the new record unemployment levels an economy that's just not growing and prospects all around and when they look to their new president they don't expect much of a future either so much so that sixty eight percent of french people are fearful for their future close to the record high of seventy percent in two thousand and

five shortly after jacques chirac was reelected for a second term but france did manage to beat all other presidents in unpopularity after just one hundred days on the job. rating this came after nine years in government and. bad ratings after only four months. so it's catastrophic situation for you when you vote for change and you relate as the president doesn't have even a plan to deliver. the reforms you vaguely promised i mean of course you are. adding salt to injury the state just threw a lifeline to a struggling mortgage lender by guaranteeing its debts after launch explicitly declared the world of finance as his enemy during the election campaign. this craziness has to stop i think this financial sector is spending on the other side

billions for things which are not a priority for us. francis began sending direct aid to anti assad regions in syria a former french colony a move that shortly followed. laws promise to recognize a provisional government formed by the opposition an all too familiar style in french foreign policy that irks citizens like mathilde despite having voted for a law and what she calls france's intrusive behavior she says is all about securing for national interests. we can change president but the foreign policy doesn't change both main political parties decided to go to war in my need of country to send the french army to go and kill people and i recall today it is syrian money abroad they were trying to get just like what happened with libya the french have a superiority complex to a point where they imagine that they are the one saving others but they don't know is there we see other people for their money. a teacher at a local school at

a mother of three this is what she tells the kids to see the film something they tell the kids to study hard improve their language skills and they must think of their future outside of france are your confidence and that this point the french have clearly lost patience does or sylvia r.t. paris and i later in the program here are more reaction on western plans to recognize the syrian opposition i don't know what you could call the equivalent of the obvious recognition of a government in exile or building a government in exile perhaps if the russian government were to recognize the ku klux klan as a government in exile in america and provided heavy artillery so that they could go against washington or something like that. or it's ten minutes past the hour here in moscow boosting free trade and nurturing closer links that's our asia pacific

nations aim to energize economic growth all across the world the apec summit that's just wrapped up in russia's far east developing nations sought to underpin the global recovery and outpace expansion in developed countries are to use to retrieve bank i was in the city of lot of awestruck. one logical person was rounding up the results of the two thousand and twelve form which russia posted for the first time he basically again praise the fact that apec is extremely important as a region and as an organization it accounts for around fifty percent of the global economic output and global trade and therefore the shift is happening globally towards this region and russia is no exception and. china plays an extremely important role as a driver of global economic growth actually in an exclusive interview that the president gave prior to this forum that it was and also still stated the importance of russian chinese relations china is indeed becoming

a global economic and political hub china has taken up this new leading role you know tony in russia's eyes but also in the always of the whole world what makes this rather special however is that russia and china are neighbors and you know social relations took thousands of years to evolve to where they are. over the coming years we are bound to achieve a one hundred million dollar turnover rate for that exclusive interview is of course available on our you tube channel you can catch it there but also i think more important was the q. and a session which followed that round up of the four and letting the person had a chance to comment on this state of russian and european relations of course the eurozone is now in a crisis and therefore that in a question was asked as to what is happening between russia and europe is the trade war he answered that the situation is far from a called trade war and the fact that your commission is new right now looking into gas problems

a so-called monopoly position on the eastern european markets is based on the economic problems in the region and that basically europe now wants to transfer some of this economic burden onto russia and a rather peculiar and one thing i would say question that let. and was asked to comment on his recent stop the he made prior to the apec summit and that was your model in russia to teach a flock of cranes to fly south he was using a hang glider and the journalist said that basically it's created a whole wave of internet jokes and a comparison also was made to russia's electoral race that only sixty three percent of the krays the site had to pull the curtain and the others decided to go somewhere else and this is what he had to say not all the queen's fallujah mediately only the weak ones don't mean i must admit it's also the leaders fault the pilots phoned the not all the koreans for

loony to flee if i was too fast and too high he can't keep up there are also birds who don't fly in a flock even if they aren't part of the flock they're part of our population and they should be taken care of as much as possible. and i was listening to that q. and a at the international press center here and the answer was followed by a standing ovation. it is to retrieve ever deck of there from a lot of our stock while many more details on the speech by a lot of you put into work clothes the apec summit plus analysis of the main outcomes of the event on our website of course that is dot com. well not all countries send their leaders to the summit in vladivostok with the us elections approaching barack obama opted to stay at home to concentrate on the campaign trail is currently tied in the polls with a rival mitt romney and as artie's marina portnoy reports when you look at the two

parties platforms it sometimes seems there's very little to separate. in two thousand me puracal bomb i turned us politics into something of a pop culture phenomenon we made one of those defining moments. a moment when our nation is at war our economy is in turmoil the democratic presidential candidate accepted his party's nomination valley to rebuild america's moral standing and break from the policies of his predecessor the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in washington and the failed policies of george w. bush four years after change occupied the white house america is still at war twenty three million citizens are unemployed and most of the national security policies cemented by george w. bush continue unabated or have been expanded the code of fixation of what we're illicit abuses under bush imprisonment without trial spying without warrants we've

now replaced imprisonment and torture largely with assassination which is actually not a moral improvement under obama's leadership guantanamo bay remains open the patriot act has been renewed warrantless wiretapping extended but cia black sites have closed targeted killings have been justified drone strikes publicly acknowledged military commissions codified however enhanced interrogation like waterboarding has been banned critics say obama has not only double down on bush's policies he's also raise the stakes signing the national defense authorization act made him the first us president to assert the right to assassinate anyone anywhere without any legal sanction if there is a war cries out there we can the war crimes iraq. tops the list this made many of those who voted for him hoping for change left disillusioned in fact what they

appear to have voted for was more of the same obama's ratings are now the lowest of any incumbent president since the one nine hundred eighty s. the two major parties are very this are very much the same on all the important issues when it comes to spending more money than we have. engaging in foreign conflicts that we can't afford the cost of america's overseas military campaigns have contributed to a u.s. national debt that topped sixteen trillion dollars this week while obama's america is running on empty critics say wall street continues to play largely by the same rules that led to the global financial crisis there hasn't been regulation of banks in a sufficient way and the main crisis affecting the united states which is to say the financial clutch on the global economy and the corporate stranglehold on the political system hasn't changed at all because president obama comes from a coalition that led to that in the first place since obama has stepped into the white house america has seen an unprecedented rise in grassroots movements like the

tea party and occupy wall street they'll both very different one thing uniting them is the claim that the people of america are being ignored by their own government the two major us political parties have historically gone to great lengths and have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to highlight their differences yet following obama's first term in office the biggest change may be that more voters are likely to see a democrat and a republican as two sides of the see more merino portnoy r.t. me. it's good to have you with us here not to you today still to come just a little bit later in the program titans in the middle east as israeli settlers use fear of iran to justify the occupation of palestinian land. by turning our attention out of out of syria where the u.s. has reportedly been beefing up its presence along the turkish border american

officials said this week that washington is sending teams of advisors to support assad fighters commenting on the western nations plans to recognize the syrian rebels and writer william and dolls says that would be a mistake given some elements within the opposition ranks. their long term agenda is introducing a. taliban like fanatical. islamic sharia law in into syria and ending the tolerance of different religions which has been the trademark of syrian life for decades under under the old assad family. in general and there are reports of from journalists inside syria over the last months of the so-called opposition in many cases there are al qaeda or mujahideen that have been brought in from saudi arabia and elsewhere and provided guns and weapons. that they have beheaded civilians and blame the atrocities on the on the assad government so this is

a really. i don't know what you could call the equivalent of the obvious recognition of a government in exile really a new government in exile perhaps if the russian government were to recognize the ku klux klan as a government in exile in america and provided heavy artillery so that they could go to washington or something like that it's just absurd. now the prime minister also has reiterated his calls for president assad to step down to make way for a new government formed by the syrian opposition the u.k. continues to provide indirect help for the rebels there are now fears that ordinary britons are heading for the syrian front line of the story to watch. to most britons going about their everyday lives the war in syria seems worlds away but for a few it's a struggle they feel personally involved in as the u.k. government portrays president assad as an evil dictator there's evidence that britons are going to syria to fight for the opposition area m.p.

khaled mahmoud says some in his community have already gone there is particular individual who's actually gone back to baghdad at the moment and is going back in a few weeks time who's been engaged in fundraising supporting people and putting people together to go back to get people who say that. they made work and other. rides saying that they're going to support the resistance some says mahmoud of british syrian extraction others of british muslims who feel their faith makes this their struggle but whatever their reasons for going the fear is what they'll be when they return they're trained in the art of warfare but they're all to radicalized as well and then they want to then continues on credit causation they want to bring more people on board and then perhaps their looks to try to. resolve some of the gripes they have here that's blowback the u.k.

has already seen from another conflict here in london on the seventh of july two thousand and five the official reports into the seven seventh's bombings revealed the existence of rumors that two house of the four bombers had been to afghanistan for so-called violent jihad back in the u.k. mohammed sidique khan and says that town with together killed fourteen people in combined suicide attack specific and seven bombers were only vaguely known to the authorities and that could be the case for fighters returning from syria too it's all very well to notify the u.k. borders agency but in reality there's very. little they can do people that may leave here to fight in syria will not go directly to syria they may stop in turkey or lebanon or so the government will not be able to really know the. nation there's no real way of telling whether they're actually going to end up in syria there is no way to know. who when they enter syria who they'll be liaising

with. ideologies necessarily how the ologies and viewpoints might change in syria these are the scenes that could greet them on their return and he islamist organization the english defense league is unlikely to take further radicalization of british muslims lying down creating more bad feeling and deeper fissures in an already divided society full western who's british freedom party is allied to the e.t.l. says militant groups are preparing for a confrontation we're going to get further and further into this horrible situation of them and us and them and us and then you have small scale violence that starts. to i think literally entering into a religious civil war scenario so far the government's given the syrian opposition eight million dollars for non-lethal equipment including communications

but ordinary britons could find themselves paying the far higher price of unrest and insecurity at home for this support for the syrian opposition laura smith r t. ok a quick pause from the weekly not to go into the r.t. world update will start with iraq a wave of blast killed at least thirty four people this according to reports from reuters but the most serious was in a city north of baghdad when gunmen and a suicide bomber attacked a military base killing eleven souls cook a car bomb struck a group of police recruits claiming eight lives and another car bomb exploded outside a french consulate building in the country's south killing a police guard others died in a string of further blasts all across the country at this point no one has claimed responsibility. egypt's armed forces have killed thirty two militants in an ongoing operation against islamists in sinai that's according to officials of the operation

was carried out with israeli permission due to the two countries peace treaty which bans heavy weapons in the zone along the border is the most militants have gained a foothold in the sinai area since the overthrow last year of president hosni mubarak a government crackdown began after militants killed sixteen border guards last month. well new york city has been hit by two tornadoes in a span of ten minutes hold in well some power knocked out a certain residence videos from bystanders here show a funnel cloud sucking out water and sand several houses and trees damaged no injuries reported. now it's no secret that israel and iran sworn enemies but what's less well known is how the hard line and often aggressive rhetoric between the two affects people's lives in the mideast melting pot. now reports on the west bank city where external fears are ramping up the rift between

a divided community. the call to prayer religious jews walk past a mosque in judaism's holiest city the scene speaks volumes about the gap between two peoples living cheek by jowl. forty five years ago a part of hebron the largest city in the west bank was returned to jewish control since then around six hundred jewish families have lived in the small enclave outnumbered vastly by palestinians they vow they will never be driven out despite the fact that jewish settlement in hebron is widely considered illegal under international law and so they justify their presence in part by looking for an enemy the fact that. there is a distinct target to get the jews out of her own is not a and and in and of itself it's a means to an end that being that they don't want to use in her own they don't want to is in jerusalem but even more than that they don't want use in tel aviv or in

haifa or anywhere else and instead of pointing fingers of palestinians the settler movement has begun championing the claims of iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad he stokes fear and uncertainty in the hearts of most israelis is their rhetoric a lot of all of them in the future this is not exist and that they don't. remember saying it or where and over again but the hostile talk from tehran is having unintended consequences the settler movement is mocking ahmadinejad's comments inadvertently putting him in the camp when israel's most widely circulated daily newspaper recently listed the safest cities to live in a time of emergency most israelis didn't notice that listed among the so-called cities of refuge were civil settlement alongside residential centers within israel proper. is doing for the settlers what they've been struggling to do alone and that is give them legitimacy by terrifying ordinary israelis so they forget to

distinguish between israel proper and the settlements but a growing chorus of anti settlement protesters is calling on the government to cool down and stop buying into the politics of fear it's obvious that the government is talking about iran as a diversion they version from the no peace with the palestinians with. what's going on with the settlements with the amount of money that they're spreading on the settlements nonetheless the settler movement is moving full steam ahead behind me is palestinian have run permission to drive through this boom comes from the israeli army that sits here just outside palestinian have run inside. jewish have run this is the perfect example of how israeli settlements and palestinian villages and cities exist on top of each other and for as long as the settlers can play on israeli fear and convince israelis that muslims want to kill them wherever they are they'll continue building their settlements and ordinary israelis will remain

focused on the freight outside their borders rather than look at what is happening in their own backyard policia r.t. hebron. so i could have you with us here in our to today i welcome to the program we will be back in just a second to see. formula.

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